Deputy: Tip leading to missing boy might be in stack of paperwork

The folder with tips on the whereabouts of Dylan Redwine is two inches thick.
Each one is on a single sheet of paper. They have come from just about everywhere – California, the Northeast, even the East Coast.
This isn’t a local search anymore. It’s national.
“There’s dozens upon dozens...

“There’s dozens upon dozens upon dozens, and I am being conservative, of tips that have come in,” said Dan Bender, spokesman for the La Plata County Sheriff’s office.

That stuffed folder and the ringing telephone tip lines are the focus of the investigation into the disappearance of the 13-year-old Monument boy. He was last seen at his father’s home near Vallecito on Nov. 19, where he was visiting Mark Redwine for Thanksgiving.

Broad searches, hampered by harsh weather in the mountainous area, are no longer on the agenda.

“We had 10 inches of snow from the last weekend storm,” Bender said. “There’s another three or four feet in the mountains just since last Thursday. It doesn’t mean we have scaled down, there are different levels of searches.”

In advance of the storms, searchers hit the final spots on their list before the winter weather hit.

“We’ve hit some areas several times,” Bender said.

Although the focus has changed, investigators are still laboring around the clock.

Reported sightings around the country likely are due to media attention, Bender said. Investigators contact law enforcement in those areas for follow-ups.

“We have had national coverage including multiple episodes of the ‘Nancy Grace’ show, so people think that they may have seen someone who looks like Dylan or feel they knew family members, or friends contact us,” he said.

While Dylan’s mother, Elaine Redwine, has returned home to Monument, she has a direct line to investigators. So does Mark. Mark and Elaine Redwine are divorced.

The tips, Bender said, “don’t always lead to something, but we have to look at all of them, because one of those tips in a large stack of papers might lead us to Dylan.”